Page 43 - Grapevine May-June 2020
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Around The Vineyard
Destemmers and Hoppers:
Key tools in making great wine
By: Cheryl Gray
A ter one is to keep things out that don’t Heaven Hills, which is bounded on the north by
crucial step in making a good wine a bet-
Washington’s Yakima Valley and on the south by
belong.
the Columbia River. The winery does releases twice
a year—in May and October—and distributes its
That process starts in the vineyard, where hop- wines to more than 30 states. The demands of an
pers are used to collect the grapes, while destem- operation this size require vigilance over its grapes
mers separate the fruit from what some in the that technology and years of expertise provide.
industry call “MOG,” which is winery shorthand for Jeremy Santo is the company’s winemaker.
“material other than grapes.” For every vineyard,
which brand and type of destemmers and hoppers “With the size of the loads coming to the winery
used largely depends upon the volume of the har- (22 tons in three gondolas per truck), we use a
vest. hopper large enough to unload one gondola at a
time to complete the truckload. Here at the winery,
Family-owned Mercer Estates Winery in we do have the ability to use a destemmer while
Washington processes tons of grapes during receiving grape loads, but rarely use it. Because of
harvest. Its vineyards stretch across Horse the ability to selectively harvest in the vineyards,
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